


a circular legacy

by Benzaiten (DaughterOfTheWest)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ancestors, Angst, Colorful Language, Conversations, Dream Bubble, Gen, I love writing the Vantas boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-05
Updated: 2012-09-05
Packaged: 2017-11-13 15:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterOfTheWest/pseuds/Benzaiten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dream bubbles allow for a lot of things, especially conversations that need to take place. Karkat has a bone to pick and The Sufferer's got it coming. Round and round the universe goes, descendant to descendant and ancestor to ancestor, always inheriting the momentum of the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a circular legacy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mizbingley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizbingley/gifts).



> I wrote up a Tumblr rant about Homestuck Characters upon FINALLY finishing catching up to the most recent update, which made me realize that Karkat/the Sufferer turned out to be one of my favorite characters from the whole of Homestuck. So, when I woke up at 2AM on Monday with an idea that slapped me across the mental face and demanded to be written, I wrote it. Many thanks to MizBingley (who indulges my love of oneshots and angst and is a fabulous beta), and many thanks to you lovely readers!
> 
> Partially inspired by a scene from "Filling Blanks and Taking Names" by Ashkatom, which is a FANTASTIC ancestors-era fic and you should totally read it. :) My version of the Sufferer is really different, but I appropriated the idea that some of the Ancestors ended up stuck reliving moments from their lives. 
> 
> Rated T for creative insults. Frankly, though, I don't see how anyone who's read Homestuck can expect anything else from these characters! ;p
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> EDIT: AHHH I HATE THE HTML FORMATTING-- I just realized that there were some formatting mistakes that I missed when I first posted this because I was too busy trying to get all of the italics and shit right... Oh well, I think I've fixed it now. If there's something that looks wrong, though, please don't hesitate to tell me! I know that formatting can really mess up the flow of a piece and I don't want that to impede anything I put up here.

You can’t tell if it’s been sweeps or seconds. Time was never your forte, but still there’s something sluggish and viscous about the way that moments pass that makes everything outside of your immediate senses feel slow, fuzzy. The sun never moves and the world doesn’t turn and your wrists have been rubbed down to the bone over and over again-- a cycle of healing and destruction that would be poetic if it didn’t hurt so fucking much. It all seems real. Your shackles are white-hot and the blood seeping out of your ribs is cherry-red mutant life dripping into the sand. Your final sermon still feels fresh and biting on your tongue.

Some immovable rock of truth in your chest insists, however, that this is not the world you once knew, this is not your home, and the shadowplay of memory in your head (people and shouting and crying and chaos and _pain_ ) is more real than these things before you, walking in the light.

Long ago you came to the conclusion that you’re dead.

Following your realization, you had another epiphany: this is a memory of _how you died_ , paused in slow motion to leave you chained to the moment that you finally let yourself break. Floodgates of recollection let slip pieces of what you once knew instantly-- there is your lusus (mouth wide and eyes shot through with tear stains of jade), there is your friend (beaten to a golden-bloody pulp and being hauled away by imperial guards), there is your matesprit (a fleck of promise, olive green in the distance), there is your murderer (mid-grin as your death seals her victory). The sky has been frozen in permanent dusk and the stars have paused their wheeling through the sky to watch you, winking, like the end of your life was some giant fucking cosmic joke and this is the stupid fucking punchline that’s absolutely _hilarious_ to everyone but you.

So when a kid (just a fucking grub) appears out of nowhere and stands with the spectators, you spit out a bloody wad of saliva at his feet and roar at him like he’s just another shadow-face in the crowd come to laugh at that same giant fucking cosmic joke that is your life and death.

“What the fuck are you looking at, you sack of shit?”

He nears, edging out of the crowd and walking before you to take a good long look at your bloody, smashed-up mug. His eyes are rounded with dark bags and shadows and his horns are nubby little things. You don’t remember ever seeing him but familiarity rears its fugly head and makes you wonder why his stupid sulking face looks so goddamn familiar.

Maybe it’s the way those beady little eyes of his bore through your skull like he’s giving you an MRI. He wrinkles his nose in the kind of disgust that makes your blood caustic.

“So, you must be the ass-licking fucktard that I have to thank for the fucking piece of deranged dipshit that is my shit-for-brains life.”

As much as you hate the fact that he’s spewing nonsense crap out of his mouth like it’s his goddamn wastechute, you can’t help but feel a little bit inwardly proud of his colorful use of language. Wait, why the fuck would you be proud? Punkass shitmuncher. 

“I don’t know what brand of fucking ludicrous turd-sucking drivel you’re going on about, nubnuts. Get out of my fucking face so I can suffer in peace, got it?” You feel your cheek spasm in pain as the edge of those _stupid fucking handcuffs_ burn and bubble and slice into your wrists, letting loose a new drip of crimson mutant slimeblood that streaks your face and runs down the side of your nose, “Who the fuck are you, anyway?”

The nooksucker chuckles like the fucked-up douchenozzle he is, looking torn between ripping you a new wastechute and breaking down into tears. The part of you that you could have sworn you’d already lost (the empathetic understanding, the peace-loving heart that had long been buried under toxic fury that came with the knowledge that _the world betrayed you_ ) jabs a painful spike of humility into your rage. He’s just a kid. He’s a fucked up kid and he’s in some kind of pain and he looks just like you did at six sweeps old. 

“Hey kid, answer me, look me in the eyes,” He obliges, stares right into your fucking mind, “Who are you? Why are you here?”

“I’m you, dumbass.”

A delayed reaction, but the realization knocks you over like a sack of bricks to the head. How were you so retarded not to notice earlier? “...You’re my descendant.”

“Karkat Vantas.” He kicks the sand idly with one shoe, nose wrinkled in disgust either at your stupidity or his own internal monologue or the pungent stench of blood and singed flesh that hangs around this dumb place. 

It makes sense. Same last name, same nubby little horns, same sunken eyes and permanently wrinkled forehead; hell, even the same stupid voice. He’s like a fucking mini-me. This time, it’s your turn to laugh like a dumb fuck. “Look at that,” This cosmic joke just keeps getting funnier and _fuckin’ funnier_ , now that there are two butts to the punchline, “Shit, man. I mean...” 

You trail off, hoping that he’s going to pipe up and say something to save you from the gaping shitstorm of a question that is “What do you say to your future-past clone guy who is just as much of a messed up fuckwad as you are?” Luckily, he jumps in after a silence so long and painfully awkward that you kind of wish these cuffs would hurry up and get to your artery. Doesn’t help that you realize that you’re already dead and couldn’t die again even if you wanted to, anyway.

“I thought a lot about what I’d say to you, you know,” The grimace on his face looks like it’s about to shatter to pieces, fists balled up in his pockets, eyes wildly oscillating between fury and resigned delirium, “If, for whatever fucking batshit reason this stupid universe came up with, I had the chance to meet you. The Sufferer. The Signless. The grand- _fucking_ -architect of my doomed turdsickle of a life.” 

Karkat let his eyes rove anywhere but to the expression of quiet reception that found its way out of the dark annals of your long-past kindness and onto your bloodied face. You can tell he’s trying desperately not to break down and shout and scream and cry no matter how much the emotional overload is pushing his composure off the edge. There’s venom in his voice, “You were just a goddamn saint, huh? Preaching the good word of peace and love and crap to shit-stain assfucks who were deaf and blind and might as well still be sucking on their lusus’ teat. You were just a motherfucking _paragon_ of light and rainbows and sunshine until the Condesce finally caught you and strung you up to die. And it wasn’t until then that you finally, _finally_ , gave in.”

You’re not sure how to react-- fury and sadness and frustration and compassion well up in your throat and threaten to spill out into the open like you’re puking up your uncontrolled feelings. His eyes on yours feel like a punch to the gut. Such malice, but something in your sloshed-up thinkpan whispers that it’s not entirely for you. He continues. 

“You were doomed, you nook-fucking piece of shit. From the very beginning. As soon as you started trying to tell people that there’s anything other than what they know, you closed those fucking handcuffs on yourself and sentenced all the fucktards who knew or loved or followed you to slaughter. You know that?”

Rhetorical question, it would be prudent to stay silent. You study the well-worn creases of frustration written between his eyebrows. You’re not entirely sure if you wince from his accusation or the realization that your handcuffs have dug even further into the sinews of your hands than you previously thought possible.

“And did you know that this, right here--” He motions wildly to the sigil on his chest, an eerie sight that makes your wrists writhe,“Is your goddamn ‘Sign’. ‘Signless’ my ass, I’ve got your fucking _suffering_ and your fucking _sign_ right here, jackass! Right on my goddamn chest! You may have died but there’s a fuckton of people who didn’t and they took your stupid fucking sign and pinned it on me when I had the shit luck to be born a mutant pariah who’s so fucked up he’s not even on the fucktastic nooksucking hemospectrum! So you, in your complete and total disaster of an existence, are the precedent for a mutant fuckup like me, and you have single-handedly set the bar for fucking life up very high, but gosh darnit it looks like I’ll set a NEW MOTHERFUCKING _RECORD_ anyway because I’m that big of a GODDAMN SCREWUP who put a fucking _CANCER_ in the goddamn UNIVERSE!”

Karkat is shaking, nails drawing blood from his palms and tears etching new lines into his face. At this point he’s panting from all the shouting and his breaths rasp violently in the parched desert air. The silence is pregnant with a jumbled knot of tangled up troubles and painful memories. The strings are tied to both of you, tearing at the corners of your lives and unraveling them one stitch at a time until there’s nothing left of you but puddles of thudding viscera and existential issues. Did you really fuck up _so goddamn badly_ that your pain overflowed into his life, too?

“Kid, I--” Words don’t seem right, it’s not _just_ to try and explain things that cannot be articulated. “I don’t know what to say--”

“JUST SAY SOMETHING!” He’s desperate now, jaw clenched in a futile attempt to stem the flow of tears let loose from years and years of pressurized frustration blowing up all at once. He grows quieter and chokes his words out between spiteful sobs, “Just say something. _Anything_. I’m sick of this and I’m sick of myself and I’m sick of being the biggest mistake in the fucking world, and you’re the only person I’ve ever had who might be able to get it and you’ve been dead my whole life. I just...”

You can watch the words fit themselves together as he tries to explain a lifetime’s worth of convoluted emotions that have seeped into his heart over time, flowing in and out of his veins in sync with his crimson, mutant blood; the blood that you share, that no one else in the universe has. Whether you like it or not, the two of you are inextricably linked. 

“I want to know if I can change any of this. Myself, all my fuckups... Am I doomed to fail at _every single thing_ I do?” 

The question is familiar. It was, you recall, one of your final thoughts before the world fuzzed out in a haze of inky black clouds and blood loss. It was part of your final fucking _sermon_ , for fuck’s sake. Even in your pain and shackles, you feel yourself sigh into dropping your shoulders and staring Karkat in the eye. He’s you. He’s one hundred percent you. He’s you after your compassion was stolen and your conviction was poisoned and all that was left was the all-consuming rage that you tried to change the world and failed. The world refused the peace you offered them, so those motherfucking idiots could rot in their war-torn shithole of a fucked up, hemochromatically-segregated planet if they loved it so fucking much. You tried to show them the beautiful alternative. You failed.

“I would say that I’m probably not one to talk, kid,” your voice is sandpaper from disuse and dried-up expletives, “I mean, I’m the one who's strung up on a fucking line. But... Now you’ve got me thinking: maybe I didn’t fuck up so bad, you know? And maybe you didn’t, either.”

He looks confused. You fill in the blanks for him.

“Look, I had something that I wanted to tell to the world. I told it. And even though I died, if it’s any indication by that necklace you’re wearing under your shirt or the sign you keep on your chest, I did something right to pass that message on beyond my death. Hell, you could change your shirt if you wanted to as a nice little ‘fuck you’ to the societal order, but you didn’t. I’m willing to bet that it’s because you saw promise in my message, too, Karkat. You’re part of me or I’m a part of you or however the fuck this whole Ancestor-Descendant thing works, but either way we share a lot of things (as far as I can tell) and even if a tendency towards self-loathing is one of them, another one is that we think about the world beyond the parameters we’re given. Am I right?”

“...I don’t know if I follow,” Karkat folds his mouth into a thin line, jaw still set to block any tears threatening to fall. You can watch the efforts he takes not to cry cross his face like watching one of your favorite movies. Listing a title would take too long, but the image is appreciated.

“By all means, we were fucking kicked in the nook before we were even born. Having mutant blood should make us nothing more than culled heads, right? And maybe I didn’t get my peaceful world and maybe you put cancer in a universe, but the fact that we even got this far is a fucking miracle, right?” You don’t mean to use the Grand Highblood’s terminology (that’s far too loaded a word, ‘miracle’) but Karkat doesn’t seem to think twice about it and nods his head solemnly.

“We should have died, but we didn’t. We said ‘fuck you’ to the world and lived our lives and spit in the face of probability or fate or whatever you want to call it. I mean, a lowblood lususfucker like me ended up getting the better of the fucking _Condesce_ so bad that she put me to death. You made a new universe, and I can’t imagine you did that without friends to play the game with you. A cherryblood mutant made enough friends to play Sgrub and I think, if I guess right, that I’ve seen your friends in visions of mine. They’re all over the goddamn hemospectrum, aren’t they? By all means, you should never have been able to hang out with purplebloods and bluebloods or even a jadeblood, but you didn’t give a fuck and you did it anyway because the hemospectrum is nothing but a stupid stratification for society. And if we failed, me with my mission or you with your new universe, I’d say it was a pretty goddamn glorious failure, wouldn’t you?”

Crazy or right, crazy or right, you watch his opinion of you flicker between the two options. Based on the slump to his shoulders and the toothy smile of resignation, you think he settled on the latter. He sits down in the sand with his legs crossed and drops his head to his hands, rubbing his eyes and smoothing back his mop of tangled black hair around his nubby candycorn horns. You two sit in mutual silence for who knows how long, ruminating over what you just said. He’s been staring at the sand and you’ve been staring at him and don’t know what to do but begin to laugh. 

So you laugh, from the chest, a real laugh with real breath and real humor. The giant cosmic joke isn’t on you anymore, it’s on the fucking universe that thought it could take you on and win. Karkat picks up his head and looks at you like you’re crazy, but you’re laughing and you don’t give a fuck and the world is the one that needs to get it’s head checked. 

“Did you finally snap or something?” He scoffs, but you can see a hint of something genuinely concerned flash across his face. Only the two of you cherrybloods in the universe, and one of you is already dead. He doesn’t want to lose you to insanity yet.

“Hah, I think I’m getting it, kid, I think I’m finally getting it.” You’re grinning and laughing to the sky because you’re realizing something important, something that makes all of this death and pain and suffering feel small, “You and me, we’re the same. We’ve had our hearts cut out of our chests and fucking smashed under the world’s scrummy shit-stained bootheel but there’s no fucking way that means we’re beat. There’s still something in the universe worth fighting for and fuck if I’m not going to pick up and try again. I may be dead but I’m not a corpse yet. What do you say, Vantas? A fucking universe out there and you’re alive to be a part of it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” The look on his face right out of your younger days, when Dolorosa would tell you stories to put you to sleep and you’d ask her ‘did that really happen’? She would smile, serene in the midst of the chaos, and answer you: ‘No, my sweetgrub, it’s just a story. Now go to sleep and I’ll wake you up in the morning.’ Karkat looks like he is listening to a bedtime tale and tentatively hoping that it turns out to be real in the end.

“I’m talking about the fact that you’re still living. Even if I’m dead, you’re just going to have to live for the both of us. Not just _live_ , either-- you’re one of the people creating this new universe and fuck if you’re not going to be the one to make it an awesome place to be, got it?”

It takes a moment before he realizes what you’re asking of him, “What, you want me to be your new _you_?"

"Well, not really, but kind of. I want you to be better than me. I don't want you to end up here, and I don't think you will, kid."

"I've spent my whole goddamn life under the thumb of the shit you left behind. Why should I throw myself up on a fucking pedestal just to do the same thing you did? And who would listen to me, anyway?" He's trying so hard not to betray himself, trying not to let you know just how much he doesn't hate you, not at all. You can read it like it's scrawled on his forehead because it's like reading your native tongue. His nails dig into his arm and you think you see some beads of crimson blood form up under them, "I’m just some angry fucking kid with blood issues and a thesaurus of fugly words to say.”

A heart you previously thought had atrophied beats in your chest like it never left. Karkat inspires that in you.

“I can't make the decision for you. But don't you ever sit there and think that way about yourself. Angry kids are the ones who change the world, got it? If you want some advice, here it is: _Stay_ angry.”

He snorts thoughtfully. He’s given up on looking incredulous and just skips right to the questioning, “Doesn’t that seem a little contrary to the whole ‘peace and love’ shit you were peddling?”

Can’t help but chuckle at that one, “Heh, not at all. Anger can be productive. It’s when it ferments into hate that it gets toxic. Anger, though, is fuel. It can get you through a lot of shit and it’s useful. _Stay angry._ Complacence is the enemy, got it? That’s the only way you’ll be able to change anything. If you’re complacent with the shitstains of the world then you might as well be a nooksucking lobotomized imbecile.”

He mulls over what you said, turning the idea around in his mind like he's playing with a smooth stone and trying to find the cracks and fissures in its surface.“...Being angry has never been too hard for me. Us. Whatever,” He folds his arms and watches you through the dark mop of his unkempt hair, “...I guess I should be doing something good with that.”

Recognising the fact that anger has promise was one of your first steps to becoming the man you turned out to be. You don’t want to force your sins on him, but maybe, just maybe, Karkat could do better than you ever could.

Time starts to slip back into place. The gears finally lock into step and the thickness with which the world moves loosens, at first barely noticeable. It isn't until you see one of the crowd's hands grab for him that you realize what's happening, but then time is gaining momentum until the shadows are raging once again, and the motion makes the pain arc through your neuro-tendrils once more. He isn’t going to be able to be here for much longer.

“What the fuck?” Karkat stands as an arrow flings through the air and through him and pins you in the rib, a blow fated to happen over and over again but it never fucking hurts any less than the first time. Karkat’s not a natural part of this universe, but you are, and he's got to wake up soon before the whole thing resets and all of this was for nothing.

“This is a dream, nub-for-brains!” The insult is endearing now, and you have to shout to him over the din of the crowd, “Go and get out into the world and get ANGRY, Karkat! It’s your turn to be the agent of change now, got it? So promise me: you won’t fuck this up. It’s a promise that even a shitsponge like you can keep!”

The shadowplayers are writhing, surging like a inky tide over the hot golden sand. You can barely pick out your descendant’s nubby little horns through the throng, but he’s there alright, watching you, and you can only hope that he’s hearing what you say.

“Take your fucking beautiful blood and shove it down the Condesce’s throat for me, kid! I may not be your cliche fucking movie lusus, but if I was I’d be saying the same thing that I’m saying right now: **I’m proud of you!** Remember that!”

He’s being pushed away, farther and farther and you lose sight of him because your blood is dripping in your face and clouding your eyes. The pain seeping fireworks into your vision doesn’t help, either, but you know that he’s gotta be somewhere out there. The last of your life’s strength goes into screaming: “GET OUT OF HERE! Go kick some ass and make a world so fucking fantastic that things will never, ever, end up like THIS!” 

Red and cloudy black steal your vision and sap your life out from every pore. He’s gone, he must be, and the world is gone and time begins to slow as you die another death only to awake, in pain, some five hours prior to relive the whole thing over again. It’s the fate of the dead to be trapped in the fragments of the life they lived, and this is yours, but even if you’re here at least he’s _there_ and as long as that’s true, there’s a chance for you. There’s a chance for you and Dolorosa and Disciple and Psiioniic and for the peace that you lived and died for. The hope glows softly. The anger crackles. The sweeps trickle through you.


End file.
